Last Updated on April 11, 2023 by Dave Schoenbeck
Are your employees happy in their day-to-day work? Unfortunately, recent studies have illustrated a troubling trend: according to Gallup, 53% of workers are not engaged in their jobs. In comparison, 13% of workers are actively disengaged—meaning it’s a slim minority of your teammates who are fulfilled in their careers.
And it’s clear what part of the problem is: another poll found that 75% of workers who quit their jobs do so because of their boss.
High turnover due to disengaged employees is disruptive to business flow, not to mention costly.
As managers, it’s up to us to become more effective leaders to improve employee motivation at our companies. First, we need to examine our leadership strategies to get to the bottom of low employee morale.
What Leaders Can Do
Motivating disengaged employees falls under the responsibility of leadership. After all, it must be built into the company culture to combat disengaged employees.
I propose the following 10 responsibilities that we have as managers to prevent employee disengagement:
- We must develop our supervisors’ leadership skills to shape more empathetic, communicative, supportive, inspirational, and professional managers in our organization. Senior leaders should closely supervise front-line managers to ensure all our colleagues are treated correctly.
- We should collect honest and anonymous feedback from our employees regularly and then aggressively address our shortcomings. But, of course, this feedback must be received in good faith, and we must create an environment where our teammates feel safe sharing their thoughts.
- Every business must create and implement a document stating its core principles and guiding values. This needs to be a living cultural touchstone, not just a piece of paper. Everyone on our team must be made aware of this cultural statement.
- We must show every employee how their job contributes to the success of the company as a whole. Employees feel more motivated when they see they make a difference in the organization’s bottom line.
- We must create an atmosphere in our workplace that encourages civility, rules, and justice between colleagues and coworkers. Disengaged employees frequently feel like their workplace is against them: we can combat this by demonstrating fairness and inclusion.
- We must provide a workplace that allows employees to develop their skills, then let them take on new challenges commensurate with those new skills. We can combat disengaged employees by proving that we care about their career goals.
- We must eliminate micromanagement so our teammates can enjoy more autonomy and independence within pre-set guidelines. Micromanagement is not an effective management style. Why did you hire them if you can’t trust your employees to do their jobs right on their own?
- We must create a financially stable business where our associates are not fearful about their future. Job security leads to happier employees that are willing to stay.
- We need to conduct meaningful and fair annual performance reviews for every employee. At these reviews, we must communicate goals and developmental needs. Annual reviews should not be the first time employees hear about problems; instead, we must frequently chat with employees throughout the year to give them honest feedback about their work.
- We should frequently communicate with everyone on our staff about initiatives, results, aspirations, and opportunities.
Disengaged employees are inevitable in business. However, you can significantly adopt strategies to improve employee morale as a leader. Please complete my contact form for a complimentary video coaching session to improve employee engagement.
Coach Dave
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